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The Bionic Wiki:Current events
Current Events is a centralized spot on the wiki where the community can discuss topics that concern the whole of the wiki. Think of it as a talk page for the entire database. If you want to open up discussion about a particular article, please do so on the Talk: page for that article. Don't forget to indent and sign your posts (with ~~~~) to make discussion easier to navigate. Episode Titles There's a really super-picky English teacher part of me that would like to see a slight change in how the episode titles are presented right now. I don't want to see articles as a episode header - for example, "The Vega Influence" should be presented as "Vega Influence, The". This'll make things easier for alphabetization purposes - otherwise I think we're going to find a logjam of episodes starting with "The". As I said - just call me picky ... :) — Grace (talk) 05:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC) :Hey, we love super-picky English teacher-y parts of people! Especially on a wiki. My spellcheck is my friend! ;) Ironically, I was giving this very idea some thought as I saw Scott busily updating the episode lists (thanks, Scott!). :Ultimately my feeling is this: category type should inform the spelling of the content. All the episode guides, which I've examined, that are categorized by airdate (my personal preference), or production date, both definite and indefinite articles in the titles remain unchanged. I think this should be true of our wiki. :However, if it's easy to do (Scott?) I think an alphabetical list should also be created. I'm sure there are many fans who know the title of an episode but can't remember in which season it aired. Alphabetized episode lists were made for these moments! In this case, I absolutely agree that all articles should be re-placed. -- Alex7000 13:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC) ::Hi, Grace! Paul's right, it's great to have super-nitpicky English-teacher types on a project like this. Right now, the episodes in Category:Bionic Woman episodes are ordered by airdate. If you look at the edit tab of any episode page, you can see how this numbering system was achieved. Basically, the wiki software allows for articles to be ordered in the categories by any method we want. For example, look at Category:Bionic Woman characters and you'll see that Jaime Sommers is alphabetized under S''' rather than J. Again, you can look at the code under the edit tab on her page to see how that was done. — Scott (talk) 14:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC) :::Okay, take a look at Category:Bionic Woman episodes now (you may have to hit Refresh)... there's an alphabetical list linked at the beginning of the category. — Scott (talk) 14:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC) Spoiler and Non-Spoiler Summaries There is simply no possible way to avoid spoilers in the episode summaries. Nor should we try--I think an encyclopedia should contain the most detailed and spoilerific summaries one can find. However, I think a good idea is to have brief non-spoiler summaries, too. Call it a teaser. Enough info to excite a reader. And then if she wants to continue to the meat, she can. -- Alex7000 14:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :I like the way Memory Alpha does it (on their fleshed out episode pages anyway). Each page begins with a brief summary of what the episode is about, then a more detailed one follows under an appropriately named header. Wikipedia has a spoilers template to caution against reading things you may not want to, but they're wikipedia and have millions of contributors and readers. Bionic Wiki, like Muppet Wiki, is going to have a much smaller target, and it's easier to establish that episode pages are going to have spoilers. In other words, when someone comes here, it should be understood that there will be spoilers. For example, Josh Lang is just a short article right now. But doing his biography justice would include writing everythign we know about him, including his fate at the end of the episode. Avoiding spoilers is limiting in this capacity, but I think it's a given that the end of any such long article is going to include what happens. I'm probably babbling now and not making sense. — Scott (talk) 17:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::Actually, I like what you've done. Those few sentences you wrote for those particular episodes are perfect teasers. They're a good example of what I'm talking about. Alex7000 18:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC) Members vs. Articles Why are items within in categories referred to as 'members'?--why not 'articles' or 'items'? -- Alex7000 14:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :I'm not sure what you mean. At Category:Active talk pages, I see them referred to as subcategories and articles. — Scott (talk) 17:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::Look at the list that loads when you click on Category Index. Alex7000 18:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :::Oh, that one. Um... I don't know. — Scott (talk) 18:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC) Wiki Name Change? Brainstorm: '''Bionipedia! Just a thought... -- Alex7000 14:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :Sounds fun, that's entirely up to you as the founder :) — Scott (talk) 17:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC) name references So as to be consistent throughout the pages here, is there a preference as to how we want to reference character names in an article? For example, on Jaime Sommers, I've already started saying "Sommers did this... and Sommers did that." I would strongly recommend the last name be used in regard to performers in this encyclopedic context, but for characters, would it feel better to say "Steve did this... and Jaime did that...."? Thoughts? — Scott (talk) 06:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :Oh, absolutely! Surnames should always be used when citing actors or any real person. Using the familiar for the characters I don't have a problem with. I know I'll be calling them Steve & Jaime and Oscar and Rudy, etc. We should also allow the tone of the show or episode to inform our citations; I would never refer to Dr. Franklin as Carl! And I would never refer to Callahan as Peggy or Margaret. -- Alex7000 13:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC) Characters category So, I have a few ideas on how to handle the categories for characters. The simplest way would be to create a category called Characters, and drop everyone into it. If we want to be more specific and allow for easier browsing, we could place BW characters into a Bionic Woman characters category and 6M$M characters into another with both of those existing as sub-categories to Characters. That specificity would then leave us with open options as to where we can put characters that were exclusive to the TV movies (and other sources -- were there comic books and novels?). Or, such non-specific characters could just go into the main Characters category. Alternatively, for example, we could put Josh Lang into Six Million Dollar Man characters AND the main characters category so they could be found either way. If that's what we decide, then naturally 6M$M wouldn't continue to be a sub-category to Characters, as it would be pointless. That's the way we do it on Muppet Wiki: Kermit is categorized under Muppet Characters AND Muppet Show Characters AND Sesame Street Characters. Thoughts? — Scott (talk) 22:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC) : So basically the choices are: :# One top-level category containing a huge list. :# One top-level category containing multiple sub-categories. :# Multiple top-level categories. :Well, there's really no difference between option 2 and 3. If the same character appears in both shows, we still have to list them in each category (like you did with Kermit). With the Bionic shows it doesn't happen all that often, so I'd vote for the sub-categories. And you're right, we could then have sub-cats for the comics, movies, toys, books, etc. --Alex7000 23:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC) ::That sounds logical. So, would we put Kate Mason in TV Movies characters, or something different which combined characters from other sources? — Scott (talk) 23:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC) :::Yes. But I don't think we need "Tv Movies" as a sub of Characters. I think the name of the movie would suffice right alongside the names of the two shows -- does that make sense? So under the main heading of Characters, we would have "The Bionic Woman," The Six Million Dollar Man," "The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman," "Bionic Showdown," and "Bionic Ever After." What say you? -- Alex7000 14:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::::So, Category:The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman characters? It's a bit long IMO, but it's specific. — Scott (talk) 17:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :::::And what's wrong with a long category name? ;) We could shorten it but still keep it formal. Like, "Return Of (1987)" Alex7000 18:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::Nothing! A wiki is not, after all, paper :) — Scott (talk) 18:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)